Chapter 11 #2
Penny dropped onto the bed and bent forward holding her face in her hands. She wasn’t crying, though. Shana could tell she was thinking, realigning the axis of reality in her head of who her brother was and what had happened to Harvey.
“What did Del think of Harvey?” Shana asked.
Penny lifted her head with a start. Her big bright eyes with the heavy mascara and wide stripes of eyeliner emphasized her horror.
Shana knew that was when Penny realized what she’d been leading her to, what this was all about.
“No.” It was a strangled answer and Shana wasn’t sure if she meant no, it couldn’t be, or no, Del didn’t like Harvey. It probably didn’t matter. Shana knew the answer. Del didn’t like anyone. Not even his sister from what she could tell.
He was all about himself.
“Del couldn’t stand Harvey, but he pretended to get along. Didn’t matter because the feeling was mutual. And if you want to know the truth, sometimes Harvey didn’t play at getting along very well.”
Shana sat down next to Penny on the bed, sinking into the comforter. It was softer than she’d expected.
“Why did you hire Beachcomber Investigations, Penny?”
“I was worried. I don’t know if I really wanted to divorce Harvey. I think I wanted to find him with another woman.”
“What made you worry?”
“He was agitated. He kept disappearing—I found out by accident he was coming here. I knew the Gables lived here and phoned them, mentioned that Harvey was on the island and asked if they’d seen him.
Of course they hadn’t. One thing led to another and a few weeks later when he told me he was going away on business for a few days.
I forced him to tell me he was coming here.
I asked if I could come along and visit with the Gables and he said no, absolutely not.
He said he didn’t want to worry about me.
Which didn’t make sense at the time but it does now.
He wouldn’t tell me anything else and he left.
I called the Gables and they recommended that I hire you to look into things.
They said you could help if Harvey was in trouble. ”
“Why did you tell us you suspected him of cheating?”
“I didn’t want to sound ridiculous. I figured it wouldn’t matter, as long as you were following Harvey and keeping an eye on him.” She blew out a long breath.
“I guess it did matter after all.” She got teary then and Shana put an arm around her.
“Don’t blame yourself for trying. Most wives wouldn’t have bothered. You did the right thing.”
“Now what?” Penny asked her with streaks of makeup blotting under her eyes.
Shana got a Kleenex from her bag and wiped the mascara away while she contemplated what to say.
“Do you want to find out the truth?”
“Yes.” There was no hesitation.
“Good. Then here’s what I need you to do.”
*****
To everyone else but Dane, the results of the confrontation between Penny and Del were disappointing. They thought they’d overestimated Penny’s relationship with her brother and underestimated Del’s ability to smell a rat.
But Dane smiled as they listened to the digital recording of the conversation.
Once Penny agreed to talk to Del, she got him alone in the garden exactly where she was instructed.
He and Shana gave Acer a call and left the party.
Acer took his surveillance equipment, the black box, from the car to the shrubbery on the ocean side of the garden.
The soothing sound of the late-night surf served as the backdrop to the conversation.
Once it was clear the conversation had ended, Acer hightailed it back to the Jeep where Dane and Shana were waiting with the engine running.
It wasn’t so much that they needed to get away in a hurry.
What was going to happen? They were at a party filled with about a hundred potential witnesses.
Del might get angry with Penny, but she was his sister.
Dane wasn’t worried that he’d hurt her. He would use his sister, but he wouldn’t hurt her.
Del would be confident that he could talk his way around any issue Penny had. That was the kind of guy Del was.
All Del would do is yell more accusations at them, cause a scene and throw them out of the party. So they left early all on their own. The only bad thing about an early exit in Dane’s mind was that he didn’t have a chance to eat the enticing dinner Laura had tempted them with.
And I didn’t have a chance to slow dance with my girl under the moonlight with the ocean breeze wafting onto the terrace mingling with the distant sounds of the orchestra.
Instead, they picked up some take-out at the back door of the Shark’s Table where their ad hoc junior private-eye Ronnie Ryan worked.
He was a kid at barely twenty and Dane wasn’t as sure as Shana that he’d ever become a real private investigator—he had a very long way to go—but he kept them in emergency food when they needed it. Like tonight.
Shana called Cap and they met him at the beach shack making himself comfortable in Dane’s kitchen and sipping a drink. When Dane came crashing through the door Cap looked like a man waiting outside a delivery room for news about his first-born.
“Well?”
“We haven’t listened yet,” Dane said and motioned for Acer to set it up on the scuffed dining table right alongside the food Shana put down.
Once they were all seated, except Dane, with plates of food and drinks in hand, he gave the go-ahead.
Acer flicked the button to play back the conversation.
Dane stood leaning against the archway between the dining room and the kitchen with the bottle of Patron in hand.
He hadn’t poured himself a drink and he had no intention of drinking from the bottle, but he figured the others might need refills.
He was right.